Core Activities

Allow consumers to choose their own doctors so that they are in charge of medical decisions

Give working Americans freedom from the fear that losing a job may mean losing health insurance

Encourage research and innovation to find more cures and better treatments for illnesses

Provide broader access to new medical treatments

Embrace the use of health care information technologies to expand access to quality care

Reduce costs based upon competition, not price controls

Opportunities in an Election Year

In the years leading up to a presidential election, the public is keenly focused on issues that affect the quality of their lives and well-being. Americans are trying to get insight into the candidates’ beliefs and policy ideas, as well as gain insights into their ability to lead our nation in the future.

Consequently, health care policy has gained increasing attention in these public debates. This is a fresh opportunity to educate citizens on the importance of the decisions that will be made and how the outcomes will impact them. The election season presents us with the chance to inform candidates and the media about pro-consumer health policy options.

The Galen Institute is actively involved with all these audiences as we advance 21st century solutions that embrace freedom and consumer choice.

Policy leaders also rely on our fact-driven research and innovative ideas to gain insights into policy, and we work with them to formulate solutions. We also provide advice to candidates and their staffs at both the federal and state levels to help them develop policy options.

Galen carries out these ideas through:

1. Policy Initiatives

Tax reform and the uninsured
It is no coincidence that the United States offers the highest-quality health care in the world and that it repeatedly has turned its back on a government-run health system. The challenge for the twenty-first century is to modernize out-of-date policy decisions to make high-quality health care accessible and affordable for all Americans. One of the keys is tax reform.

Today, the tax code provides a generous, yet highly invisible, subsidy for the health insurance that more than 175 million Americans receive through the workplace. This tax benefit is worth more than $300 billion in tax savings to working Americans and their families.

Even with this generous subsidy, tens of millions of people go without coverage because they either can’t afford the health insurance offered by their employers or coverage is not offered on their jobs.

To rectify this inequity, Galen sponsors research and educational programs on the crucial intersection of health and tax policy. We advocate policy changes to give all Americans the opportunity to obtain the health coverage that best suits their needs.

Consumer empowerment
We also work to educate the public about arrangements that will allow consumers to control their routine health spending while still having protection from catastrophic expenses. Consumers can transform the health care market-place to make it responsive to their demands for lower costs and greater value. This truth is universal: Whoever controls the money controls the choices.

Medicare, prescription drugs, and HSAs
Seniors on Medicare also deserve more choices and the opportunity to get better benefits. The Galen Institute advised the White House and members of Congress in creating the Medicare Modernization Act that gave seniors the opportunity to get better benefits through private Medicare Advantage plans and coverage for prescription drugs through the Medicare Part D program, and provided millions of Americans the opportunity to gain greater control over their health spending through Health Savings Accounts.

Health care deregulation
The Galen Institute conducts research on the effects of state and federal regulation on costs, access to coverage, consumer choice, and innovation in medicine and insurance coverage. Our research shows that health insurance costs rise under the burden of increased federal and state regulation. This makes health coverage even harder for individuals to afford and drives up the number of uninsured. Lifting regulatory and legal burdens is crucial to the evolution of a more vital, consumer-driven market in the health sector.

2. Coalition Building

We bring a unique approach to public policy research, serving as a broker of ideas for the top experts in the market-based policy community. The Galen Institute plays a critical role in leveraging the expertise of health policy experts at the federal and local levels.

We coordinate and facilitate the work of the Health Policy Consensus Group — a non-partisan task force of leading health care economists, health policy analysts, and researchers primarily from the major market-oriented think tanks.

The Consensus Group presents an opportunity for top health policy analysts to reason together and speak with a unified voice on health care reform.

As a result of these and many other activities, this group has injected free-market ideas into the federal health policy debate.

We also work actively with the states and with state-based research organizations to distribute our research and help them to develop policy proposals to address their individual challenges.

3. Communications & Outreach

The results of Galen Institute research are distributed to the public, the media, and policymakers through virtually every communications channel we can muster. We organize conferences, testify before Congress, organize briefings for government officials and candidates, conduct media interviews, and speak frequently at conferences around the United States and the world. Some of our specific products include:

Books, papers, commentary articles. Our commentary articles are published in major newspapers around the country, including the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Houston Chronicle, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and the San Diego Union-Tribune. Our articles also have been published in The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, and we are quoted regularly in newspapers and news magazines across the country.

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Updated on 6/4/18